Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper) (19 page)

Ms. Arellone gave an exasperated sounding groan as I struck off leaving her standing there.

“If you’re not going to take this seriously, Captain, there’s not a lot of point is there?”

I turned, and she still stood there, fist on hip and free hand twiddling the black metal. Her expression was something between hot anger and bleak despair. I sighed and walked back to where she stood.

“My apologies, Ms. Arellone. Perhaps we can start over? As you say, it’s good for us to have these little opportunities to perfect our routines before we need them, right?”

She didn’t seem convinced, and maintained her petulant posture.

“Have you had breakfast, Ms. Arellone? Would you like some? I happen to know that this place serves an excellent meal, and I highly recommend it.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and allowing her head to fall forward on her neck as she gathered herself.

“Not just at the moment, Captain, thank you.” She kept her voice low and her tone reasonable.

“I do apologize, Ms. Arellone. I slipped out thinking I wouldn’t disturb your rest. I plead lack of adequate coffee on a foggy brain as my excuse. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have got you up, and at least told you where I was going.”

She sighed, and apparently realized what a picture we must make having a spat in the middle of the promenade. She relaxed her stance and we started strolling toward the lift herself, and.

“I’m sorry, too, Captain. I shouldn’t have made a scene, but...” her voice trailed off. She crossed her arms under her breasts, staring at the deck as we walked.

“But...?” I prompted when she didn’t continue after a few heartbeats.

She glanced up at me with a haunted look in her eyes. “But you scared the hell out of me, Captain.”

I frowned at her. “Scared you, Ms. Arellone?”

“I came out looking for you. I found a pot of coffee in the kitchen, a cup with what looked like two sips taken out of it, your room is torn up, your trunks wide open, and looking like they’d been rifled. Clothes everywhere. And you weren’t there. I didn’t know where you’d gone. I had no way to reach you. I relaxed a little when the bellman said he saw you leaving by yourself, dressed in civvies, and heading for the lift, but—” she paused and shrugged a bit sheepishly. “By then I was so mad I wanted to kill you myself.”

I nearly laughed, but realized that she was serious. I’d already insulted her too much for one day, and managed to control it. “Why would anybody want to kidnap me, Ms. Arellone?” I worked to keep my voice level and reasonable.

She grimaced. “Sorry, I should have shown this to you last night.” She looked around, then crossed to a newsie kiosk, and pressed the preview button on the top. A series of headlines flashed across the preview screen superimposed with a “Read the Whole Story! Buy Now!” watermark over the top. She stopped the display on a headline that read, “Diurnia’s Most Eligible Bachelor?” Under it a slightly blurred, but still recognizable, picture showing a three-quarter view of a man in a shipsuit walking along the docks.

“Is that supposed to be me?” I asked leaning into the screen to try to see.

She shook her head and sighed in exasperation. “No, Captain, that is you. I’d say it was taken sometime yesterday morning before the change of command. You went out someplace yesterday morning, and came back with Mr. Wyatt.”

“How’d you—?” I started to say, then I remembered she’d been on watch.

“Yes, but what makes you think this was—?” I turned back to the picture, and realized that the blurry figure walking along with me was, in fact, Avery Wyatt. “Oh.”

“I saw this last night at the cafe while I was waiting for you. I meant to show it to you then, but you and Ms. Kingsley walked away, and I forgot about it until this morning when I got up and found you gone.”

I straightened up and realized she had a good point. I nodded to her in apology. “I’m sorry, Ms. Arellone. We obviously do need to work out our procedures.”

We took a few more steps toward the lift before something she’d said caught my attention. “What did you mean, you had no way to contact me?”

She spread her hands helplessly. “No tablet. I had to turn it back in when I left the ship.”

“No peda?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I lost it when they locked me up, and I never replaced it because I always had the ship’s tablet.”

I pulled an abrupt about-face, and headed in the opposite direction toward the chandlery. “We need to fix that first.”

Chapter Fifteen
Diurnia Orbital:
2372-December-21

It took a stan to get a tablet. It wasn’t so much the expense as finding somebody who’d sell me one. It was one of those learning experiences that I kept finding so surprising. It was the first time I’d tried to buy ship’s gear while in civvies, or at least what they apparently considered sensitive gear. I had to thumb an ident chip to prove I was a Captain before they’d sell me one and even then they didn’t like the idea that I wasn’t actually on a ship.

“Remind me to come in uniform next time, Ms. Arellone,” I muttered as we left the chandlery with the new tablet in a carryall.

“Aye, aye, sar.” She had a little giggle in her voice.

We took about four steps toward the lift when I felt her stiffen.

“What is it, Ms. Arellone?”

“That man just took your picture.” She nodded unobtrusively to a skinny man wearing an orbital admin jumpsuit. He had turned away, and was studiously examining a ding in the surface of the bulkhead diagonally across the promenade.

“Are you sure?”

“Skipper!” The exasperation was plain in her voice.

We were almost even with him, and I caught him glancing in our direction before he went back to running his fingers over the tended bulkhead.

“This is going to get tedious, isn’t it, Ms. Arellone.”

“I’m afraid so, Skipper.”

I sighed and reached for my tablet, freeing it from my pocket as I crossed the promenade, and walked directly up to the man.

“Captain!” Ms. Arellone’s voice was a muttered, hissing sound behind me. She made it sound like a curse. I admired that.

“Excuse me...” I spoke to the man from about three meters off.

He glanced up, looking a bit flustered, but keeping himself turned toward the bulkhead, trying to maintain his fiction.

“If you wouldn’t mind?” I asked waving a hand vaguely in the air.

He forgot himself and stood, turning to face me, his eyes flickering toward Ms. Arellone behind me, and back again to my face in time to get the full force of the photo flash head on. The digital in my tablet showed a nicely recognizable mugshot of the man from his navel up. I leaned sideways to show the likeness to Ms. Arellone. “I hope he takes a better photo from behind the lens than he does in front.”

She frowned but made a big show of looking at the image. “Not terribly flattering, is it, Captain?”

I shook my head. “No, the flash does that, but it does illuminate him nicely, and shows the name badge very well, too.”

I flipped the tablet around so the very confused man could see. He blinked at it, still recovering from the flash in the face.

“I’m going to assume, for the sake of our purposes this morning, Mr.—” I ostentatiously read the name from the image on my tablet, “—Allen, that this really is your name and that you really do work in the Orbital Admin Department.”

As I spoke he began to regain his composure, and a smirk blossomed on his face. “Assume whatever you like, Captain Wang.”

“Ah, good, you know me. That saves so much time.” I turned my head to Ms. Arellone without taking my eyes off the alleged Mr. Allen. “Do you see any uniformed security personnel in our vicinity, Ms. Arellone?”

I heard her step back a bit and presumed that she was looking port and starboard around the promenade. “No, Captain.”

I sighed. “Oh, well. Then can you point out the nearest security camera please.”

“It’s directly over your head, Skipper.”

“I thought as much, there should be one or two further down the promenade that capture this area. Would you wave at one of them please, Ms. Arellone?”

“Waving now, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Arellone, and do you see the chronometer on the bulkhead above the chandlery?”

“I do, Captain.”

“The time?”

“0943, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Arellone. We now have a date, a place, a time, and a security service track, along with a very close up and detailed image of our Mr. Allen. Would you say so, Ms. Arellone.”

“I would, Captain.”

“Thank you, Ms. Arellone.”

Meanwhile the man in question began looking around, perhaps for help, or a confederate. The self-assured smirk had been replaced with the look of a man who began to think he faced someone who might be missing a few rivets in the deck plating. I smiled slowly at him.

“One more thing, Ms. Arellone?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Would you recognize him again if you saw him?”

“I would, Captain.”

“When you see him again, please don’t kill him.”

His eyes went round, and he took an involuntary step backward, trying to decide if I was crazy.

“Are you certain, Captain?”

“Yes, Ms. Arellone, quite certain.”

“Okay, Skipper. I won’t.”

“Thank you, Ms. Arellone.”

I let my smile fade. “Now, Mister...Allen.” I paused and gave him a little nod. “You may or not be aware that impersonating uniformed Orbital Staff is a Class A felony.”

“But..”

I held up my hand. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Mister... Allen.” I held up the tablet. “I just mention it because, if you’re not actually Mr. Allen, and you can’t convince the authorities that you have a valid reason for wearing Mr. Allen’s uniform, it might be wise for you to find a shuttle.”

“Shuttle won’t work, Skipper.”

“Why is that, Ms. Arellone.”

“Extradition here. Confederated planet. He’d need to go to Breakall or Jett, maybe.”

“Thank you for that clarification, Ms. Arellone.”

“Very welcome, Skipper.”

I nodded to Mr. Allen. “Next time, be more careful.”

I turned and continued strolling down the promenade as Ms. Arellone strode along beside me. We walked on in silence for a while.

“Do you think you scared him, Skipper?”

I thought about it. “It was a pretty obvious play. We didn’t get a clean win, but he’ll think twice next time.” I glanced at her. “You will recognize him again?”

“Oh, yes, sar.”

As we rounded the curve to the lift we met two uniformed security guards coming the other way. One had a tablet out with a still photo on it. When they saw us, they changed course to intercept. I grinned.

“Officers. Good morning. Thank you for your prompt assistance.” I still had my tablet out, and held it up for them to see what I had before I made any sudden moves.

“What seems to be the problem, sir?” The shorter of the two seemed to be the spokesman for the team.

“I’m Captain Ishmael Wang. This is Able Spacer Stacy Arellone of my crew. We were leaving the chandlery when a man dressed in an Orbital Admin jumpsuit accosted us.”

“What did he do, Captain?”

“Nothing very serious. Took our picture, pretended he didn’t. Spent a goodly amount of time making a close inspection of a dent in the wall.”

They two officers looked at each other. “That doesn’t sound very threatening, Captain.”

I smiled. “It wasn’t, but his behavior was so suspicious that I began to doubt that he was really who he purported to be.”

I held up the digital. “He’s wearing the uniform of a person named Allen. I don’t think he’s Mr. Allen.”

The two looked startled and frowned.

“Why do you think that, Captain?”

“When I called him Mr. Allen, he didn’t respond.”

“Maybe he didn’t hear you?”

“It’s possible.” I turned to Ms. Arellone. “Did you think he acted like Allen was really his name?”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure that’s not his jumpsuit, Captain.”

The taller guard frowned at her. “Why do you say that, miss?”

“I think it’s a woman’s suit, with the darts under the arms? And cut wider in the seat.” She shrugged. “I could be wrong.”

I blinked at her.

She stared blandly back at me.

I turned back to the officers. “Maybe it’s nothing, but I thought I’d let somebody know, just in case.”

“Thank you, Captain.” The taller one spoke for the first time. “May we have a copy of that digital?”

“Of course.” I flashed a copy to his portable, and he nodded to his partner.

“If you need anything, I’m at the Lagrange Point, or you can contact me through DST’s office here.”

“Thanks, Captain.” They nodded to us, and moved on around the promenade, moving more quickly, and one already had his communicator out.

I resumed walking toward the lift. After about five steps, Ms. Arellone said, “You know, Skipper. I thought you were bluffing with the photo.”

I grinned. “I hope our Mr. Allen believed that as well.”

“Were you, sar?”

I looked over at her. “You mean, was I bluffing?”

“Yes, sar.”

“No, Ms. Arellone. I was pretty sure that, when you waved directly at that camera, the sharp eyes in orbital security would see it and send a patrol in our direction.”